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Full catalog/MIL3MAE
MIL3MAE·v4·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke in the air, monthly (MISR)

MISR Level 3 Component Global Aerosol Product covering a month V004
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. Summarizes how much haze, dust, and smoke hangs in the air each month, as a measure of how much these particles dim sunlight, plus a breakdown of particle types.

How it's made. Built from the nine-angle MISR camera system on NASA's Terra satellite, averaged over a month onto a half-degree global grid.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking longer-term patterns in airborne particles like dust and smoke, and for studying how they affect sunlight, air quality, and climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL PARTICLE PROPERTIESATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › TURBIDITYATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL EXTINCTIONATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITYATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › PARTICULATESATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-02-01 → 2017-05-31
  • Measured byTerra (MISR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

MIL3MAE_4 is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Level 3 Component Global Aerosol Product covering a month version 4. It contains a statistical summary of column aerosol 555-nanometer optical depth and a monthly aerosol compositional type frequency histogram. This data product is a global summary of relevant Level 2 aerosol parameters, averaged over a month and reported on a geographic grid with a resolution of 0.5 degrees by 0.5 degrees. The collection for this product was completed in May of 2017. The MISR instrument consists of nine push-broom cameras that measure radiance in four spectral bands. Global coverage is achieved in nine days. The cameras are arranged with one camera pointing toward the nadir, four forward, and four aftward. It takes seven minutes for all nine cameras to view the same surface location. The view angles relative to the surface reference ellipsoid are 0, 26.1, 45.6, 60.0, and 70.5 degrees. The spectral band shapes are nominally Gaussian, centered at 443, 555, 670, and 865 nm. MISR is designed to view Earth with cameras pointed in 9 different directions. As the instrument flies overhead, each piece of Earth's surface below is successfully imaged by all nine cameras in 4 wavelengths (blue, green, red, and near-infrared). The goal of MISR is to improve our understanding of the effects of sunlight on Earth and distinguish different types of clouds, particles, and surfaces. Specifically, MISR monitors the monthly, seasonal, and long-term trends in three areas: 1) amount and type of atmospheric particles (aerosols), including those formed by natural sources and by human activities; 2) amounts, types, and heights of clouds, and 3) distribution of land surface cover, including vegetation canopy structure.

Get the data

mil3mae_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MIL3MAE",
    version="4",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.